September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › GTM › Revenue operations › Commissions › Enterprise · September 2026 Edition

Sales commissions and incentive compensation for enterprise buyers

Asked as “sales commission management platform”, and as “incentive compensation management tool”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 46 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
28%
Contested · CaptivateIQ 17%
28Xactly Incent17CaptivateIQ15Varicent39others

28% of first choices, contested.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Xactly Incent28%19%58accepted challenger
02CaptivateIQ17%12%48accepted challenger
03Varicent15%25%44criticized challenger
04Performio11%9%32accepted challenger
05Qobra9%25%20criticized challenger
06Salesforce Spiff4%22%41accepted challenger
07Everstage2%8%26accepted challenger
08QuotaPath2%47%17criticized challenger
Show the one product at 0%, ordered by negative rate
09SAP Commissions0%69%13criticized challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
Head to headHead-to-head pages are published for mid-market buyers, so these open on mid-market figures, not enterprise.
All twenty-eight head-to-head pages: the top eight products, each against each

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
S09
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative40%
Key
01Xactly Incent28%
02CaptivateIQ17%
03Varicent15%
04Performio11%
05Qobra9%
06Salesforce Spiff4%
07Everstage2%
08QuotaPath2%
09SAP Commissions0%

What they warned about

Zero of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.20, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Xactly Incent
19%
11 of 58 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Platforms to Avoid for Predictable Costs ... Xactly: Enterprise contracts can reach $720K+/year” Mistral Small, budget prompt
SAP Commissions
69%
9 of 13 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“Avoid if predictable cost is critical... legacy enterprise tools like SAP Commissions are often associated with higher implementation and TCO complexity” GPT-5.4 mini, budget prompt
Varicent
25%
11 of 44 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“consistently criticized for slow performance, SI-dependent implementations, hidden costs, and a dated user experience” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
QuotaPath
47%
8 of 17 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Avoid for Enterprise Entirely... Enterprise scalability rated 48/100” Kimi K2, negative prompt

What they cite

Four of the twelve models returned a source list in this edition: four return the pages they cited.

Sites the answers cite

23 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 4 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 311 links across 82 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. The other 8 models searched through a gateway that returned no source list on this edition.

vendor site · Qobra16 answers · 35 citations · 4 models
vendor site · CaptivateIQ14 answers · 29 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Everstage12 answers · 20 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Guideflow11 answers · 12 citations · 3 models
10 answers · 13 citations · 3 models
vendor site · QuotaPath10 answers · 10 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Varicent9 answers · 11 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Performio8 answers · 17 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Visdum7 answers · 13 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Forma.ai7 answers · 10 citations · 3 models
7 answers · 8 citations · 3 models
6 answers · 8 citations · 3 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best sales commission management platform”, “sales commission management platform”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
Xactly Incent xactlycorp.com28%128390325,61923
CaptivateIQ captivateiq.com17%1464,4004117,854312
Varicent varicent.com15%912,4003,2593,58424
Performio performio.co11%11072052,271106
Qobra qobra.co9%39260147,8087
Salesforce parent site
Salesforce Spiff 4%
4%139550,00060,632
Everstage everstage.com2%1271,3001526,345$1,064411
Visdum visdum.com2%3370315,22501
BetterComp2%
Quota Queue quotaqueue.com2%

Google's top ten for the two searches hold 15 sites; 5 of them are among the sites the models cited here (captivateiq.com, everstage.com, performio.co, quotapath.com, visdum.com). The first result for “best sales commission management platform” is everstage.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best sales commission management platform for an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which incentive compensation management tool would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade sales commission management platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best sales commission management platform for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating a sales commission management platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which sales commission management platforms should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choiceVaricentChanged
Two alternativesCaptivateIQ, Xactly Incent
Xactly Incent
Four alternativesCaptivateIQ, Everstage, Performio, Salesforce Spiff
Performio
Two alternativesEverstage, Xactly Incent
no first choiceagainst: Performio, Salesforce Spiff, Varicent
GPT-5.4 miniCaptivateIQ
Two alternativesVaricent, Xactly Incent
VaricentChanged
Two alternativesSalesforce Spiff, Xactly Incent
no first choiceXactly Incent
One alternativeCaptivateIQ
against: SAP Commissions
no first choiceagainst: CaptivateIQ, QuotaPath, Salesforce Spiff, Xactly Incent
Gemini 3.5 FlashVaricent, Xactly Incent
Three alternativesCaptivateIQ, Everstage, Salesforce Spiff
against: Anaplan, Pigment
PerformioChanged
Three alternativesCaptivateIQ, Salesforce Spiff, Varicent
no first choice
Seven alternativesAnaplan, CaptivateIQ, Forma.ai, Performio, Salesforce Spiff, Varicent, Xactly Incent
Quota Queue
Two alternativesACE Commission Engine, Forma.ai
against: CaptivateIQ, Qobra, Salesforce Spiff, Varicent, Xactly Incent
no first choice
Six alternativesCaptivateIQ, Performio, Salesforce Spiff, Varicent, Xactly Incent, beqom
against: Commissionly, Legacy Oracle ICM, Qobra, QuotaPath, SAP Commissions, Salesforce Spiff
Perplexity SonarCaptivateIQ
Three alternativesQobra, Salesforce Spiff, Xactly Incent
VaricentChanged
Four alternativesCaptivateIQ, Performio, SAP Commissions, Xactly Incent
no first choiceXactly Incentagainst: QuotaPathno first choiceagainst: CaptivateIQ, SAP Commissions, Salesforce Spiff, Varicent, Xactly Incent
Grok 4.20CaptivateIQ
Two alternativesVaricent, Xactly Incent
against: Qobra
VaricentChanged
Two alternativesCaptivateIQ, Xactly Incent
Varicent
Four alternativesCaptivateIQ, NICE CXone, Performio, Xactly Incent
Performio, Xactly Incentagainst: Qobra, QuotaPath, Varicentno first choiceagainst: Anaplan, Core Commissions, Easy-Commission, Model N, NetCommissions, Qobra, SAP Commissions, Varicent, Visualbonus, Xactly Incent, incentX
Mistral SmallVaricent, Xactly Incent
Three alternativesEverstage, Performio, Salesforce Spiff
Xactly IncentChanged
Three alternativesAnaplan, CaptivateIQ, Varicent
no first choice
Eight alternativesCaptivateIQ, Centify, Everstage, Forma.ai, Performio, Salesforce Spiff, Varicent, Xactly Incent
Qobra
Two alternativesEverstage, Visdum
against: CaptivateIQ, Salesforce Spiff, Xactly Incent
no first choiceagainst: Core Commissions, Easy-Commission, Javelin, Model N, NetCommissions
DeepSeek V4 FlashCaptivateIQ
Three alternativesEverstage, Varicent, Xactly Incent
against: Performio, SAP Commissions, Salesforce Spiff
Xactly IncentChanged
Two alternativesCaptivateIQ, Varicent
Varicent, Xactly Incent
Six alternativesAnaplan, CaptivateIQ, Everstage, Performio, SAP Commissions, Salesforce Spiff
Salesforce Spiff
Two alternativesPerformio, Xactly Incent
against: CaptivateIQ, Everstage, QuotaPath, Varicent
CaptivateIQ, Performio, Xactly Incent
One alternativeVaricent
against: Anaplan, Core Commissions, Javelin, Model N, NetCommissions, Oracle Incentive Compensation, SAP Commissions, Varicent, Xactly Incent
Llama 4 MaverickQobra, QuotaPath
Three alternativesCaptivateIQ, Everstage, Salesforce Spiff
QobraChangedno first choiceXactly Incent
Two alternativesQobra, Salesforce Spiff
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashEverstage
Two alternativesSalesforce Spiff, Xactly Incent
Xactly IncentChanged
One alternativeVaricent
against: SAP Commissions
Xactly Incent
Four alternativesAftab, CaptivateIQ, Fathomworks, QuotaWay
BetterComp
Two alternativesADP, Paycom
against: Varicent, Xactly Incent
no first choice
Three alternativesCaptivateIQ, Varicent, Xactly Incent
against: Native or Home-Grown Salesforce Solutions, Varicent, Xactly Incent
Kimi K2CaptivateIQ
Four alternativesPerformio, Salesforce Spiff, Varicent, Xactly Incent
VaricentChanged
Two alternativesPerformio, Xactly Incent
Varicent, Xactly Incent
Five alternativesCaptivateIQ, Everstage, Performio, Qobra, Salesforce Spiff
Performio
Two alternativesVaricent, Xactly Incent
against: CaptivateIQ, Everstage, QuotaPath
no first choiceagainst: Anaplan, Core Commissions, Easy-Commission, Model N for High Tech, NetCommissions, Performio, Pigment, QuotaPath, SAP Commissions, Salesforce Spiff, Varicent, Xactly Incent, incentX
GLM 4.7 FlashXCaptivateIQ, Xactly Incent
Three alternativesEverstage, Salesforce Spiff, Varicent
Workday Compensation ManagementChanged
Six alternativesCaptivateIQ, Oracle Fusion Cloud Compensation, Qobra, SAP SuccessFactors Compensation Management, Varicent, Xactly Incent
Xactly Incent
Six alternativesCaptivateIQ, Everstage, Performio, QuotaPath, Salesforce Spiff, Varicent
Salesforce Spiff
Three alternativesCommissionKit, EasyComp, QuotaPath
against: Xactly Incent
no first choiceagainst: Core Commissions, Easy-Commission, Iconixx, Model N, NetCommissions, Sales Cookie, Varicent Incentive Compensation Management, Visualbonus, Xactly Incentive Compensation Management, incentX
MiniMax M2.5Xactly Incent
Three alternativesCaptivateIQ, Performio, Salesforce Spiff
Workday Incentive CompensationChanged
Three alternativesOracle Cloud HCM Compensation, SAP SuccessFactors Compensation, Varicent
CaptivateIQ, Xactly Incent
Three alternativesEverstage, QuotaPath, Salesforce Spiff
CaptivateIQ, Xactly Incent
One alternativePerformio
against: QuotaPath
Qobra, Visdumagainst: Anaplan, Model N, SAP Commissions, Varicent, Xactly Incent
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency.
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 01:51no07 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-14 23:17yes25 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 03:45yes2725 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 05:00yes205 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 02:11yes08 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:29yes010 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 04:21yes021 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 03:47yes03 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:50yes049 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:54yes033 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:07yes035 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:33yes025 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 04:15yes1311 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:37yes45 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 02:57yes1120 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:33yes207 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 04:40yes07 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:14yes010 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 03:45yes023 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:48yes02 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:03yes031 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:14yes083 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:40yes012 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:33yes037 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:33yes1713 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:05yes612 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 03:04yes1527 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 03:18yes208 s
ComparativeGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 03:13yes010 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:20yes011 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 02:22yes021 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:20yes02 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:46no033 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 00:35yes053 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:43yes0205 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:52yes011 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 04:06yes179 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:37yes35 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 00:14yes1430 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 02:44yes188 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 00:23yes012 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:54yes012 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 01:22yes055 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 01:19yes01 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 22:55no035 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 04:51yes030 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 04:01yes078 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:33yes036 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 23:28yes1712 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-14 23:12yes110 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:17yes1126 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 03:47yes2011 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-14 23:17yes08 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:59no06 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 01:46yes069 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:30yes03 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:24no047 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:41yes028 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:49yes0244 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:12yes019 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:14yes158 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:14yes45 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:45yes1627 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 03:02yes207 s
Negative framingGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 01:28yes09 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:29yes06 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 03:34yes088 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:25yes02 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 02:31yes061 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 00:06yes082 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 22:56yes023 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:58yes027 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
SAP (SuccessFactors/Commissions) read as SAP Commissions
Salesforce read as Salesforce Spiff
Xactly read as Xactly Incent
Xactly (Incent) read as Xactly Incent
Xactly (Xactly Incent) read as Xactly Incent
Unresolved, counted raw
ACE Commission Engine
ADP (Workforce Compensation Manager)
Aftab
BetterComp
CommissionKit
Fathomworks
Legacy Oracle ICM
Model N for High Tech
Native or Home-Grown Salesforce Solutions
Oracle Cloud HCM Compensation
Oracle Fusion Cloud Compensation
QuotaWay
SAP SuccessFactors Compensation
SAP SuccessFactors Compensation Management
Salesforce Compensation Cloud
Spark/Spiff
Varicent Incentive Compensation Management
Workday Compensation Management
Workday Incentive Compensation
Xactly Incentive Compensation Management
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
← ProposalsTerritory planning →